OPINION: Cheers & Jeers: Informed dissent by former State Board president

CHEERS ... to former Idaho State Board of Education President Rod Lewis, of Boise.

Writing in Sunday’s Idaho Statesman, Lewis raised substantial doubts about the University of Idaho’s planned $685 million acquisition of for-profit online University of Phoenix:

The deal reverses the typical transaction of a much larger public entity acquiring a smaller private institution. Purdue purchased Kaplan University for $1. The University of Arizona obtained Ashford for $1. And after passing on the University of Phoenix deal, the University of Arkansas bought Grantham for $1.

In similar “leveraged buyouts” involving the issuance of “high risk” or “speculative” bonds, Lewis notes the failure rate can be 20%. The UI’s plan to insulate itself through the creation of FourThree Education, a separate nonprofit entity, has no guarantees.

If Phoenix can’t pay its bonds during the next 12 to 18 years, it will be “the sneeze heard around Idaho’s world. Even the threat of failure will send chills through the U of I, the State Board of Education and the state.”

The UI and the State Board still “would be under tremendous pressure to settle claims” issued by Phoenix bondholders and creditors rather than risk “$685 million in damages. ... Neither the U of I nor the Idaho State Board of Education has the resources to deal with the downside risk and would be required to look at the state of Idaho and Idaho’s taxpayers for help. The general corporate view is if you can’t handle the downside risk, you shouldn’t do the deal.”

“State Board rules mandate disclosure for matters far less significant,” Lewis wrote. “Yet, the State Board has refused to hold public meetings, debate and discussion about the biggest change in the history of Idaho’s higher education system.”

Although Lewis serves as campaign treasurer for a legislative skeptic of the deal, Sen. C. Scott Grow, R-Eagle, he comes to this issue with enormous credibility in both camps — 15 years on the State Board as well as 17 years serving as Micron Technology’s vice president of legal affairs and general counsel.

If UI President Scott Green and the State Board can answer Lewis’ questions to his satisfaction, let’s hear from them.

But the time for “trust us” has passed.

JEERS ... to Rep. Mike Kingsley, R-Lewiston.

In 2018, Kingsley was facing a reelection challenge from his predecessor, former Rep. John Rusche, D-Lewiston. A retired physician and health insurance executive, Rusche was supporting that year’s popular initiative to extend Medicaid to Idaho’s working poor.

To neutralize Rusche’s advantage, Kingsley pledged to “support the will of the people (if it passes).”

In Kingsley’s legislative district, Medicaid expansion passed with 62.3%.

Kingsley won another term with 58.7%.

Although he flirted with breaking his pledge, Kingsley kept his word when it came time to defend Medicaid expansion on the House floor.

Until last week.

A bill aimed at sabotaging expansion unless the federal government accepted a series of waivers — up to and including depriving 50,000 Idahoans of coverage — died on an 8-5 House Health and Welfare Committee vote. But Kingsley, along with Rep. Brandon Mitchell, R-Moscow, moved to support the measure.

Perhaps Kingsley no longer feels politically threatened, considering that his legislative district has been redrawn to maintain Republican control. But the hospitals and health care network throughout much of Kingsley’s rural district depend on Medicaid expansion.

Is it because Kingsley rarely returns telephone calls or attends town hall meetings that he’s unaware of that?

JEERS ... to Reps. Kingsley, Mitchell, Lori McCann, R-Lewiston, and Charlie Shepherd, R-Pollock.

They were among the 53 House Republicans who last week voted to allow any public school employee to carry a concealed weapon to work as long as they’ve taken just enough training to know one end of a gun from the other and obtain an enhanced concealed weapons permit.

In so doing, these local lawmakers have ignored school teachers, school board members, school resource officers and the majority of people who spoke up at committee hearings.

Doing the right thing is no match when it comes to securing a positive rating with the National Rifle Association.

CHEERS ... to Rep. Britt Raybould, R-Rexburg.

Raybould is sponsoring a bill that would obligate governors to appoint a member on the State Board of Education to represent each of Idaho’s seven distinct regions.

That’s the system now employed for appointments to the Idaho Transportation Board, the Idaho Fish and Game Commission and the Idaho Board of Health and Welfare.

With the State Board of Education, regional representation was a norm, not a mandate. Beginning with Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter and continuing through Gov. Brad Little, that practice has been discarded. North central Idaho — which has provided State Board members such as Mike Mitchell, of Lewiston, Tom Boyd, of Genesee, A.L. “Butch” Alford Jr., of Lewiston, and Paul Agidius, of Moscow — has had no seat at the table since 2016.

Meanwhile, four of the seven gubernatorial appointees on the current board — President Linda Clark and Vice President William G. Gilbert Jr., as well as members David Hill and Kurt Liebich — reside in Boise.

Certainly, Little can find talent outside of Ada County. If Raybould has her way, he’ll have to look.

Cheers ... to Rep. Barbara Ehardt, R-Idaho Falls.

Under a bill she’s proposing, anybody elected to federal, state or legislative office no longer would be allowed to simultaneously retain an elective position at a city, school or highway district.

Lewiston has reason to encourage her efforts.

After her election to the House in 2012, the late former Rep. Thyra Stevenson, R-Lewiston, served out her term on the Lewiston City Council. She literally phoned it in — from Boise.

And while Mayor Dan Johnson kept his focus at home after his election in 2021, his decision to retain his Senate seat for another year and appoint Kendrick farmer Robert Blair as his permanent substitute was not something he shared with voters during the campaign.

In this case, Ehardt’s instincts are sound. No one is indispensable. — M.T.